"TIPS
for a
Successful Murder Mystery Party"
Useful
guidelines to consider when booking
your event.
Click
on each link for info - or just scroll up or down
Avoid
a
SURPRISE
Murder Mystery Party
Don't Crowd Your Program Schedule
Choose Good Actors
Use the Right Table and Chair
Setup
Don't Smush Your Audience
Avoid Standing Receptions
Planning for SMALLER
Parties
How to Produce LARGE Parties
Tip
#1:
Avoid a
SURPRISE
Murder Mystery Party!
Yes...we know you are
shocked when you hear this! Some people get the notion that a
murder mystery party will be more fun if it is sprung on their
guests as a SURPRISE! Well, we hate to burst anyone's bubble, but
after doing thousands of shows, we learned that enthusiasm and
cooperation will INCREASE when guests KNOW IN ADVANCE about an
upcoming mystery party. (But, you can still surprise your guest(s) of honor as
everyone will enjoy seeing THEIR reaction.)
Creative invitations can be used
effectively to make your event look fun, intriguing, and
mysterious. This way, your guests will be mentally prepared to
anticipate having fun.
They will spend days
or weeks in advance asking other people about it, and wondering if
they are going to be the one that gets killed, or if they are
going to be set-up with a murder rap, etc. And as curiosity
and anticipation psyches them up for the mystery party, they'll be more
attentive to details of the play.
When the day of the mystery
dinner finally arrives, pre-informed guests know exactly what is happening when they hear
the screams: "MURDER . . . someone's been killed!".
They'll be grinning ear-to-ear when they see the
"stiff" laying nearby on the floor.
Tip
#2:
Don't Crowd Your Program Schedule
Try not to "squeeze in"
any programming segments prior to OR during the Murder Mystery
Play. This will distract your guests and it destroys the mood of
"suspended disbelief" that is crucial to setting the stage for a
murder mystery investigation. Consider your speeches, awards and
other business as the climax of the event, and wait until after
the play is completely over. Trust us on this point...we have seen
Murder Plays lose audience interest when the "spell is broken"!
After a period of time is spent on other activities, audiences are
usually reluctant to re-focus on the drama of the investigation.
Tip
#3:
Choose Good Actors
The quality of any play is
ONLY AS GOOD AS THE ACTORS!
In cases where you supply your own actors, choose people with
extroverted personalities and some degree of talent. And, if they
have a good sense of humor, that is a bonus.
Volunteer
actors are less
effective if they: (1) haven't rehearsed their script, (2) can't be
understood, or (3) speak too soft - even when
a microphone is used. Foreigners or people with accents are usually
okay for speaking roles, unless their accent is so thick that
audience members cannot understand them when they speak English.
(However this
lends itself to good-natured humor in certain roles!)
Tip #4:
Use the Right Table
and Chair Setup
When setting the room, make sure everyone seated at the tables for
dinner can see everyone else in the room at the same time. If some
tables are tucked around a corner or worse yet - in an adjoining
room - then those particular guests will lose interest, get bored,
and then begin conversing out loud. Once
the conversation level raises, the rest of the audience
will be distracted and have difficulty enjoying the show.
Also, use ROUND table
configurations (or squares) instead of the rectangle 6 or 8 foot
banquet tables set up end-to-end. Long table seating
prevents guests from seeing the faces of most other guests -
except people directly next to them. Avoid "U" shaped
table settings as this arrangement may work for speeches, but does not
encourage spontaneous audience interaction during the play.
Tip #5:
Don't "Smush" Your Audience
Sometimes, restaurants or
banquet rooms tend to cram chairs and tables together too closely.
Murder Mystery dinners need a different approach than typical
dinner events. Round tables of 10 persons per table is too
crowded for comfort. We recommend 6 to 8 people per 72" round table. Guests need a little
space next to their dinner plate
to jot down notes on 5" X 9" detective reports. If they are
jammed in too tight to the place setting on either side of them,
no one will have room to take notes during the production. And, we
have learned from experience that if guests cannot jot down a few notes, they will start to lose interest in the play when they
suddenly feel overwhelmed trying to remember more than three
facts. If you will be using smaller tables (round or square); a
minimum of 4 persons per table is the least amount of guests you
should seat per table.
( 3 or less people
per table is too lonely and they won't feel
like they are part of the fun.)
"The One Yardstick Rule"
Allow a
comfortable
space between chair backs and tables when setting up the room.
Stay at least
36" away from walls with the backs of chairs. The room set-up
should
be comfortable
enough spacing so actors can walk between tables during the show
and not have to bump into the backs
of guests' chairs - or have accidents bumping into waiters
carrying food trays. Don't forget to allow a 5' X 5' space for
setting up the PA control console
(microphone mixer and laptop),
plus a couple small 3' square areas in the corners of the room to
set up the PA speakers on tripod stands.
Besides the One Yardstick rule, it is okay to plan for
10% guests OVER your actual head count - for the sake of space and
table set-up. Sometimes you may have more guests show up for the
final mystery dinner event. Allowing a 10% extra seating
arrangement won't get you in trouble. Also, the extra space may
allow other guests to choose to sit at another table so they will
have more elbow room.
Tip #6:
Avoid 100% "Standing" Receptions
An event where all your guests are
standing and/or roaming THE WHOLE DURATION of time never seems to work for a
successful murder mystery party. For example: cocktail receptions
use tall-top tables to give guests a place to set
glasses on along with appetizer plates. Tall-top table events are
used specifically
to encourage guests to slowly roam and engage in many conversations.
It is hard to tell
them to stop talking to each other during the play.
The reason why this type of
set-up is
so ineffective is that guests
are all on a "peer level", looking eye-to-eye with everyone else
in the room. They cannot see over the tops of all the heads of
people that surround them. So, when actors perform and speak from
various vantage points around the room; they cannot be seen and
tend to get ignored. Once your guests lose touch with
seeing the
actors speak, they quickly lose interest in the whole play and
begin talking to their closest neighbor 1 or 2 feet away. A room filled
with a wide assortment of conversations
spread out everywhere is literally the WORST scenario for conducting an
effective Murder Mystery
Play.
If a standing
reception is the only configuration you must use, then a Murder
Mystery play is not for you, and you should
consider using a different entertainment format. However, talk to us first
and maybe we can offer a solution.
Tip #7:
Planning for SMALLER Parties
Small, private murder
mysteries of 10 to 20 people is always a fun event among close
friends, work associates or relatives. But note: the key word is
"CLOSE". In other words, people that know each other well are more
prone to being outgoing and uninhibited when it comes to asking
questions, or making funny wisecracks
(which are always welcome ...in
fact encouraged!).
Small gatherings of strangers tend to be more reserved.
Case in point: funny moments in a script that usually generate
laughter from most audiences may go by without any kind of reaction when
strangers are too shy to laugh
or contribute adlibs of their own. One remedy is to use the Sodium
Pentathol affect - in other words, serve "cocktails" for added
"lubrication" of outgoing personalities to rise to the surface.
If you would like some good ideas on
how to break the ice with these type of smaller parties, call us.
We have "ice-breaking" techniques that warm up audiences
before the play gets under way.
Tip #8:
How to Produce LARGE
Parties
The first point is that with larger
audiences, there will be plenty of party personalities that will
contribute life and humor to the play. Extroverts don't care if
they say something in front of 10 people or 300 people, and that's
a "beautiful thing" in this business! Ask any comedian if they
would rather have 20 or a 100 people watch their show and you know
what their answer will be: MORE PEOPLE! More people means a bigger
laugh when something funny happens.
One drawback with larger events of
200 and more people is that your guests tend to lose their connection with
the actors whom are seated several tables apart - or as much as 150 feet
away from the next nearest actor's table. In this large scale setting,
guests who see actors stand up and speak can barely see their faces and
expressions beyond 60 feet away.
. . . Solutions . . .
For big events, our first
suggestion is to cut down the size of the show by dividing it into two
separate groups for two performances
(either one right after the
other, or one day after the next).
But, if you can ONLY do one show, then we can still add theatrical
tricks and techniques so a larger audience can still hear and see
well. INTIMACY is the key to a successful mystery play, otherwise
we risk losing the audience's attention. Call us to learn all the
"secret" ways we can pull this off.
Technique #1:
Consider using live video playback with one or two camera
people
strolling about the entire room during the play, and zooming in on
the actors for close-ups so even the furthest seated guests can
identify with each actor. Place one or two projection TV's aimed
at 10 foot BIG SCREENS so everyone has a good vantage point to
view the action.
Technique #2:
Add a couple of "Microphone Runners" so that the microphone can be
handed to each actor from the closest Mic runner. In large
ballrooms, this will save lots of wasted time waiting for a
microphone to be hand delivered to the actor from the detective.
They can be standing by the room perimeter in two different
locations and patiently awaiting the need for someone to gain
access to a wireless mic. The runners can be dressed like C.S.I.
police personnel.
Technique #3:
Add another 2 to 4 PA speakers to encircle the room. These will
diversify the amplified sound and give everyone's ears more
clarity at less volume. That way, the guests won't feel detached
from the main action of the play and won't get bored and start
talking at their tables which are located too far away from the
speakers. Adding more speakers ALSO avoids having to turn up
speakers TOO LOUD, thereby disturbing the guests seated closest to
the speakers. And, a side benefit is that the chance of microphone
feedback is greatly reduced.
